Dark Heresy
In the year 40,000 there is only war. Illumination The acolytes meet each other, some for the first time. Already conflict ensues as Eli Grendel, eager to start the mission leaves the briefing room while the others are still preparing. The Prime does not take well to this and refrains from giving Eli vital mission specifics. Tensions run high as the acolytes enter a landing pod and desend to the planet. Once planet side the acolytes prepare for the meeting with their contact. Eli and Constantine set up on the roofs and the rest of the team goes to the meeting. The preparations are not in vain as a raiding part attacks the village. Hack shows the others the might of his axe for the first time while Constantine and Eli make sport out of the helpless bandits. The Prime with help from the psyker discover the whereabouts of a temple which seems to have been corrupted. Eli and the pysker slip in the back while the others come in the main door to be confronted by a horrible sight, all the patrons have become unwilling witnesses to the birth of a daemon as a crased zealot opens a portal to the warp. Eli shouts for the others to find out how to close the portal as he unloads his aisearm into the daemon, having no effect. The daemon throw Eli around like a ragdoll as the assassin fires everything he has at it and the others try to solve the mystery of the warp portal. The daemon finally corners Eli, who with no ammounition left chambers his charmed bullet and fires one true shoot into the daemon's heart; which proves to hurt him, the same way a single bee sting hurts a bear. A scum is searching accent texts while the Prime argues with the zealot. Eli takes one final stand and lunges for the zealot, hoping to knock them both into the warp and die in service to the Emperor. However by the Emperor's grace he bounces away from the Warp and is left with minor damage. When all hoped seemed lost the scum discovers the daemon's weakness. "His eyes!" She shouts and the psyker shoots off a flaming crossbow bolt which hits it square in one eye, Eli dives over the daemon's back and launches a throwing knive into it's other eye. Rejoice For You Are True The Acolytes embark on a mission to uncover the orgins of the xeno-tech. They come to Calixis' sector's capital planet: Scintilla. The contacts on the planet is a nobleman, Laurent Strophes, somehow conected to the Inquisitor and his daughter, Julia. The acolytes have come to infiltrate the Joyous Choir and so split into "noble cousins" and their retainers. Eli takes on the guise of a nobleman and is trained in the ways of the higher class by Julia. During this time they begin to form a connection beyond servents of the Emperor. Hack, Frag and Constantine all feel much safer in the role of retainer so they main still carry some sort of weaponry. At a gathering of the Joyous Choir the acolytes begin their infiltration, many of them try a strange blue liquid which has similar effects as many drugs. The acolytes split up. Constantine, Hack and Frag go to meet the bounty hunter Vordin Orday. A strange appears and kills the bounty hunter. Constantine puts three bullets in his head but the man doesn't go down. Eli and the Arbite attend a play of sorts where a hiver is murdered for show. During an after party Sibellus locks himself in a room with a mysterious man who arrived late and seemed to scare Sibellus. Eli thought he could gain Sibellus' favor by scaring off the cloaked stranger. Unarmed except for his throwing knives, Eli fills a syringe with a strong sedative and tells the arbite of his plan. The arbite knocks on the door and is told to mind his own buisness. As he is about to try again, Eli kicks the door down and confronts the stranger. Sibellus tells him what a mistake he has made and the stranger informs Eli it is his last mistake, Eli and the arbite respond without fear as they close in on the stranger. The stranger attacks and Eli manages to stab him with the syringe, which breaks on the stranger's body. With a laugh and a confident shrug the strange flares his cloak and pulls out two power-swords. Hiding his sudden realization of what a mistake he has made, with a weaker laugh and a slightly less confident shrug, Eli flares his fancy shirt and pulls out two throwing knives. A long battle then takes place as Eli disperately parrys and dodges the attacks of the stranger. The arbite tries to attack the strange from behind with another syringe which only succeseeds in getting his hands cut apart and pulling the cloak of the stranger to reveal his cyborg-metal waist and legs. Eli begins shooting for a gun of any kind but the crowd does not offer him any assistance. Finally the other acolytes arrive, most of whom are herded off to the side by the guards who also arrive and begin controlling the crowd. One of the arbites manages to throw Eli a sidearm, which he reaches for but falls short into the crowd and disapears. The gaurds begin to close in and Eli is forced to face either them or the stranger. He choses the guards, he tries to disarm one and is impalded on the guard's sword. Eli gasps, pulls himself close, draws the gaurd's sidearm, and just as he is about to be struck down a second shot rings through the chamber. The stranger falls over and the smoke flows from the end of Constantine's barrel and cigerette. After a moment's pause Eli aims his new weapon over the dead guard's shoulder at the others and asks if they want to try him. The other acolytes begin to rush to his aid when the capital arbites arrive. Thinking quickly Eli accuses his team member and Prime of consorting with the stranger to kill Sibellus. The arbite seeing no way out of the situation plays along so the others may continue the mission.. Shattered Hope A squad of inquisitorial storm troopers arrive at Eli's door and inform him of his return to service. He arrives aboard the Inquisitor's cruiser to find his old team already assembled, minus his most trusted comrad. Hack has returned from another campaign with his guard regiment, a few more scars, a few more kills, the same deadly size and manner. Frag remains as he always was, an annoying coward, but a useful tech-priest. And in place of the fallen arbite and old assassin are two men who look equally insane in different ways. Shades of Twilight The troubles never seem to stop in the Calixis sector: a space hulk has appeared directly in a collision course for Scintilla. The acolytes assemble to be breifed on the situation, by an ultramarine. The massive form dwarfs even Hack and Eli seems the only one unimpressed. The Sergeant informs the acolytes they but retrieve a relic of a dead Inquisitor from the hulk before it is blown apart by the Imperial Navy, in 12 hours. He then tells the acolytes he will be joining them on this mission. The ride to the hulk if bumpy to say the least but they manage to make it onto the wreck in one piece. The long trek to the area where the inquistor's transmission is believed to be coming from begins. Shortly commucication outside the hulk becomes impossible, not impossible Eli points out as the inquisitor's distress beacon is making it through. The acolytes soon find the hulk isn't as dead as they believed when they are attacked by warp spawn. The vicious dog like creatures are quickly dispatched. The space marine sergeant takes one in either hand and destroys a third with his force-hammer. Hack charges with a yell to match the beast's own. Eli brings one down with a clean shoot before being knocked over by a second, without unholstering he ends the creature's life with the shotgun on his thigh. All now suspicious of every shadow and corridor the squad continues forward, only to meet a young girl. She is almost transparent and begins to lead the way deeper into the hulk. The acolytes lose sight of her but find someone just as interesting in a cargo hold ahead of them, a Dark Eldar scout. eli tells the others to wait as he sneaks off to one side. Hack, through misunderstanding or simply no will to be patience charges into the room just as Eli is about to take the scout captive. The scout goes into a flurry of needles and grenades as it fights for it's life against the acolytes coming from one side of the passage; unaware he is backing away from them right into Eli. Eli and the Dark Eldar end up taking cover on adjacent corners of the same crate. Somehow the scout ends up dying.